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Craig Troyer
Financial Advisor, Edward Jones
Professional Background
Craig Troyer is an accomplished financial advisor whose career journey has been characterized by a strong commitment to education, guidance, and community service. Originally hailing from Jacksonville, Illinois, Craig's diverse professional background began with hands-on experience working on his best friend’s family farm and later at the local public golf course. These early jobs instilled in him a strong work ethic and a connection to his roots.
Craig pursued his education at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Education. During his time at university, he became an active member of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity, where he held leadership roles as the community service chairman and later as president. This commitment to leadership and service ultimately paved the way for his future career in management positions within the pharmaceutical industry.
In his professional history, Craig has held significant roles at renowned organizations, including serving as the National Sales Manager for Home Health Care at H. D. Smith and as District Sales Manager in Diabetes at Takeda Pharmaceuticals America, Inc. Before focusing on financial advisory, he also worked as an Account Manager at Aerotek Inc. Craig's broad experience in sales and management has equipped him with a unique skill set that he now utilizes to educate and empower families in their financial journeys.
In 2011, Craig took a transformative step in his career when he joined Edward Jones as a financial advisor. This pivotal move allowed him to leverage his extensive experience in helping individuals and families achieve their financial goals, particularly concerning retirement planning, estate and legacy strategies, long-term care, and life insurance. As a limited partner of Edward Jones, Craig adheres to three core principles in his practice: listening to clients, developing personalized strategies using an established process, and maintaining lifelong partnerships to help clients stay on track towards their financial aspirations.
Education and Achievements
Craig's academic achievements began at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, where he laid the foundational knowledge for his future endeavors in education and management. His educational background has played a pivotal role in shaping his approach to client relationships and his dedication to helping others succeed.
Throughout his career, Craig has consistently demonstrated a passion for mentor ship and community engagement. He actively volunteers his time and resources at Westside Christian Church, Christ the King School (CTK), and Sacred Heart Griffin High School (SHG), where his wife, Ginger, teaches Spanish. This commitment to giving back to the community reflects Craig's belief in the importance of fostering relationships rooted in trust and support.
Achievements
Craig's noteworthy career achievements are evident in the positive impact he has had on the lives of numerous families. His approach to financial advising goes beyond simply offering products; he focuses on holistic strategies that cater to the unique needs of each family. This personalized service has led to strong client relationships built on trust and mutual respect.
Together with his partner, Miranda Hughes, Craig strives to deliver superior service to clients, ensuring that they feel understood and valued. They excel in collaborating with attorneys, CPAs, and power of attorney/trustees to create comprehensive financial strategies that align with each family’s goals and values.
Outside of his professional life, Craig enjoys spending quality time with his wife and their three children in Springfield, Illinois. They relish traveling, engaging with friends, and supporting their favorite sports teams, including the Illini, Cardinals, and Bears. Craig’s love for golf serves as a wonderful outlet to unwind and connect with others, particularly when participating in charity-oriented four-person scrambles with friends.
Ultimately, Craig Troyer embodies the essence of a dedicated financial professional who believes in the power of education, partnership, and community involvement. His journey demonstrates that a commitment to service can profoundly influence both professional success and personal fulfillment, making him an invaluable asset to those seeking guidance along their financial paths.
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Clay works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
Clay offers several powerful features including:
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- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
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- Nexus AI: An AI navigator that helps you derive insights from your network, such as finding contacts who have been to specific places or work at particular companies
Clay is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
Unlike traditional CRMs that focus primarily on sales pipelines and business relationships, Clay is a "home for your people," attempting to carve out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. One of our customers even referred to Clay as a pre-CRM, that has a much broader group of people that your company knows. Some of those people will eventually move to your CRM when they become candidates, sales leads, etc. Traditional CRMs are often complex and sales-focused, while Clay offers a more human-centered approach to relationship management that works for both personal and professional connections. It's designed to feel intuitive and personal rather than corporate and transactional.
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Clay is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Clay is especially strong for Apple users, offering Mac, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS apps with deep native integrations on each platform. This multi-platform approach ensures you can access your relationship data wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer to use.
Clay offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Clay offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Clay for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Clay accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Clay offers extensive integration capabilities. Clay introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Clay supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Clay also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
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Clay is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Clay stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Clay excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Clay is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Clay offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Clay is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Clay's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Clay has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Clay is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Clay beneficial.
Clay offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Clay offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Clay's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Clay offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Clay focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Clay also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Clay offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
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Clay is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Clay helps you organize your contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. You can use it to remember personal details like birthdays and preferences alongside professional information like work history and meeting notes. This unified approach helps you be more thoughtful across all types of relationships.
Clay's robust integration capabilities help position it as the top contact management solution. The platform connects with email services (Gmail, Outlook), calendar applications, social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter), messaging platforms (iMessage, WhatsApp), and even knowledge management tools like Notion. Clay has expanded its integrations catalog to include Zapier and Make.com support, allowing connections to thousands of other apps. These integrations ensure your contact data stays current across all platforms, making Clay a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Clay's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Clay's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Clay has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Clay's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Clay as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Clay eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.